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MRS. ANNE HUTCHINSON 



A PAPER READ BEFORE THE 



1Rew jenglant) Ibletoric 0enealoaical Society 



FEBRUARY 6, 1901 



BY 



PROFESSOR HENRY LELAND QHAPMAN 

OF BOWDOIN COLLEGE 






Trcnsrcvnac* from 



^ ; ANNE HUTCHINSON. 

^ Francis Bacon, in his essay of Truth, translates and 
quotes with approval a saying of Lucretius, which may, 
not unfitly, stand as a Prologue, or a motto, to a paper 
which undertakes, after more than two centuries and a 
half, to review the salient incidents in the picturesque 
and painful career of Anne Hutchinson. ''It is a pleas- 
ure," says Lucretius, ''to stand upon the shore, and to 
see ships tost upon the sea; a pleasure to stand in the 
window of a castle, and to see a battle and the adventures 
thereof below ; but no pleasure is comparable to the stand- 
ing upon the vantage ground of Truth, and to see the 
errors, and wanderings, and mists, and tempests in the 
vale below." 

That there were errors and wanderings, as well as 
mists and tempests, in the infant town of Boston during 
the 3^ears of which I am to speak, is certain ; that they 
gathered largely about the person of Mistress Anne 
Hutchinson, if they were not wholly due to her active 
influence and her restless tongvie, is equally certain; 
but it is not so certain that, even from our present vant- 
age ground of truth, we can justly estimate either the 
provocation or the intolerance of the prosecution and 
punishment which she suffered. It is so difficult to enter 
intelHgently into the conditions and the differences of 
a long-past generation that our judgments concerning 
them must of necessity be cautious and tentative. 

Mistress Hutchinson made her advent to Boston in 
September, 1634. Her husband, William Hutchinson, 
bore her company; but while he counted for as much 
as his wife — and perhaps more — on the passenger 



MRS. ANNE HUTCHINSON 



roll of the ship Griffin which brought them from England, 
Histor}^ takes slight notice of him, and accounts him 
the weaker vessel. Governor Winthrop, whose judgment 
was generally candid and tiTie, speaks of him, in his 
diary, as "a man of a yery mild temper and weak parts, 
and wholly guided by his wife." But it must be remem- 
bered that Governor Winthrop wrote this after he had 
become somewhat familiar with the temper and the 
parts of ^Irs. Hutchinson, and ginger may fairly be 
thought mild after a bell-pepper. I take it that Governor 
Winthrop's is a comparative, rather than an absolute, 
estimate of Mr. Hutchinson. At any rate it is certain 
that he had no sooner taken the ' 'freeman's oath" and 
thus become a legal member of the colony, than he was 
forthwith made a deputy, or representative from Boston 
to the General Court, — a testimonial which we must 
estimate by the significance it had in those days rather 
than that it has in our own. Governor Winthrop saj^s 
that he was ''wholly guided by his wife," which is, per- 
haps, after all, only a magisterial and unsympathetic 
way of saying that he was loyal and devoted to her 
through all her conflict with the magistrates and the 
ministers. He stood unfalteringly by her side both 
before and after her banishment, and to the messengers 
of the church who were sent to expostulate with him 
on his attitude, he said with a modest finnness which 
does honor to his "mild temper," that he was "more 
nearty tied to his wife than to the church ; and he thought 
her to be a dear saint and servant of God." He had so 
little share in his wife's controversies that there may be 
no occasion to refer to him again, and it is pleasant to 
take leave of him with the evidence which those words 
contain of his constancy to her. 

The Bostifc to which Mrs. Hutchinson came in 1634 



MRS. AXNE nUTCHIXSON 



was an unpretentious, not to say meagre, little town, 
giving no promise that it could ever be called, even in 
jest, and by one of its own poets, the ''hub of the uni- 
verse." It was less than half its present size, since the 
greater part of the Boston which we know is built upon 
land that has been laboriously ''made." Winding foot- 
paths, which have since petrified into so-called streets, 
connected the few humble dwellings with each other 
and with the single church wliich, considering the num- 
ber and length of the services held in it, was perhaps the^ 
busiest place in the town. -^Religion, and religion in its 
most intellectual and theological aspect, was the common 
vocation of the people, and they hurried through what 
might be called the exacting chores of Hfe in order that 
they might give themselves to frequent and protracted 
seasons of worsliip, and rehgious instruction, and theo- 
logical disputation. These things must constantly be 
borne in mind, or the career of Anne Hutchinson becomes 
inexplicable and inconceivable^ 

The pastor of the Boston church at the time of Mrs. 
Hutchinson's arrival, and for many j^ears thereafter, 
was John Wilson ; and his associate, who was technically 
called the "teacher" of the church, was John Cotton. 
Both of these good men were so intimately connected 
with the unfortunate strife which Mrs. Hutchinson inaug- 
urated, that something should be said about them. 

John Wilson was one of the distinguished company 
that came across the sea with John Winthrop in 1630 
and laid the foundations of the Massachusetts Bay 
Colony. He was a graduate of Cambridge University, 
and had been an esteemed preacher and pastor in Eng- 
land until he was suspended and silenced for non-con- 
formity. He united with Governor Winthrop, Deputy 
Governor Dudley, and Isaac Johnson informing the 



MRS. ANNE HUTCHINSON 



Boston church, of which he was almost immediately 
ordained ''teacher/' and two years later, in 1632, he 
was chosen pastor of the church, and exercised that office 
until his death in 1667. Through the greater part of 
his pastorate, indeed through the whole of it except 
when the church was rent by the convulsions that arose 
through the influence of Mrs. Hutchinson, he was held 
in universal respect and veneration, and such was the 
confidence in the power of his faith that when he was 
drawing near to death many persons of note came, — 
some from a distance and bringing their children, — to 
receive his dying benediction. Cotton Mather says of 
him, in his Magnalia, "if the picture of tliis good and 
therein great man were to be exactly given, great zeal 
with great love would be the two principal strokes that, 
joined with orthodoxy, should make up his portraiture. 
Though he was, like John, a son of thunder against 
seducers, yet he was, like that blessed and beloved Apostle, 
also all made up of love." 

/John Cotton, the ''teacher" of the church, had arrived 
in Boston in 1633, just a year before the coming of Mrs. 
Hutchinson. He was a more prominent and picturesque 
figure in the community than the pastor, Mr. Wilson, 
and for nineteen years he was the civil and ecclesiastical 
autocrat of the colon}^, — "the unmitred pope," as he has 
been called, "of a pope-hating commonwealth." He, 
like ]\Ir. Wilson, was hounded out of England by Arch- 
bishop Laud because he was a Puritan, /fie was a grad- 
uate of Cambridge University, and hM been head lec- 
turer and dean of Emanuel College in that University, 
and subsequently for twenty years pastor of the great 
church of St. Botolph's at Boston imtil he was driven 
out by ecclesiastical persecution. More than one accoimt 
has been giva^of the sermon which signalized Mr. Cotton's 



MRS. .0;XE HLTCHINSOX 



public espousal of the faith and spirit of Puritanism, and 
the effect it produced upon his admirers. It was in, or 
about, the year 1612, and in the venerable church of St. 
Mar}", in Cambridge, that this sermon was preached. 
It was an interesting and memorable occasion. The 
ancient edifice was thronged by an eager congregation 
made up chiefly of students, fellows and professors of 
Cambridge, who were drawn to the service by the bril- 
liant reputation of the preacher, a member of their own 
university, a fellow of Emanuel College. He was now 
about twenty-seven yeai'S old, and half his hfe had been 
passed in the university. He had made for himself a 
distinguished name as a scholar. He had been made, 
successively, catechist, head-lecturer and dean of his 
college. He was master of the logic and philosophy 
then in favor, which formed so large a part of the curric- 
ulum of the university. He was a Greek scholar of 
more than usual erudition, and it is said that he could 
converse readily in both Latin and Hebrew. But his 
special gift, that which had filled St. Marj-'s church, 
on the occasion of which I am speaking, w^th an expectant 
audience of scholars, was the gift of preaching. His 
sermons, written with the captivating art of the rhetori- 
cian, and pronounced \\ith the charm and power of the 
finished orator, were wont to draw forth an involuntar}' 
hum of approval and applause from his delighted hearers. 
But while his faith had been taking on the form of Puri- 
tanism, he had, at the same time, been growing dissatis- 
fied with the character of his own preaching. It was too 
showy, too superficial, too much adapted to set off the 
glory of the preacher rather than of the Master whom 
he served. Now he faced his waiting congregation with 
a different and a deeper purpose. His sermon was the 
simple, heartfelt utterance of christian and evangeUstic 



8 MRS. ANNE HUTCHINSON 

fervor. His hearers, who had come together to enjoy 
once more their accustomed feast of wit and oratory, 
were surprised, disappointed, disgusted. No faintest 
indication of applause greeted the sermon as it fell from 
the lips of the transformed preacher. ^'They pulled 
their shovel-caps down over their faces," says one account, 
'' folded their aiTns, and sat it out sullenly, — amazed that 
the promising John Cotton had turned lunatic or Puritan." 
\\Tien the historic First church of Boston celebrated 
its two hundred and fiftieth anniversary, among the 
interesting exercises of the occasion was a poem by Dr. 
William Everett picturing the scene I have just described, 
and from it I quote a few lines. 

"Sunday morning! Tower and steeple, chime confusing sweet with 

chime, 
Call all Cambridge out to worship, in the hot-souled Stuart time. 
Through St. IMary's dark-browed portal see the motley gownsmen press, 
Blue and sable, white and scarlet, passions varied as their dress. 

"Now they settle on their cushions, waiting for the rich repast 

That shall wake applause for Cotton, loud as when they hummed him 

last. 
Then as though the sultry noontide felt its clouds by lightning rent, 
Leaps the text, the Baptist's warning, one short, dreadful word, 'Repent'" 
Aye, "Repent!" no gorgeous fabric, quaint conceit or wit is there. 
Classic tale or strain poetic, sweetly floating on the air; 
But Jehovah's barbed arrow, flashing from his servant's string, 
Piercing every sluggish conscience with its imrelenting sthig! 

"O'er the crowd the preacher gazes rapt, as when on Mars's height 
Saul of Tarsus looked unflinching up to Pallas' temple white: 
From the black and scarlet go\\Tismen comes no loud approving hum; 
Stern resentment knits their foreheads, sharp contrition holds them 
dumb. 



MRS. ANNE HUTCHINSON 9 

Go thy ways, thou daring Cotton; Cambridge asks no word of thine; 
Sunk in learned ease compliant, well content with Rimmon's shrine; 
Leave thy Gothic halls by Granta, leave St. Botolph's lofty tower; 
Set those names across the ocean, there where Laud hath lost his power; 
And thy faithful word forever finds at length its due applause 
In the hum of freeboni millions, ruled by Boston's gentle laws." 

The university being closed to him, ^Ir. Cotton entered 
upon his twenty years' pastorate at St. Botolph's, and 
then followed his flight to New England, 

"To be a burning and a shining light 
Here in the wilderness," 

as Longfellow says of him in his New England Tragedies. 
A much earlier poet than Longfellow, viz : the Rev. 
Benjamin Woodbridge, who wrote in the quaint conceits 
and figures of his time, is quoted in Cotton Mather's 
Magnalia as drawing this picturesque poetic portrait of 
Mr. Cotton: 

"A living, breathing Bible; tables where 
Both covenants at large engraven were; 
Gospel and Law in's heart had each its column, 
His head an index to the sacred volume; 
His very name a title-page; and next 
His life a commentary on the text. 
O, what a monument of glorious worth. 
When in the new edition he comes forth. 
Without erratas, may we think he'll be 
In leaves and covers of eternity! 
A man of might at heavenly eloquence. 
To fix the ear, and charm the conscience; 
As if Apollos were revived in him. 
Or he had learned of a seraphim; 
Rocks rent before him, blind received their sight; 
Souls levelled to the dunghill, stood upright." 



10 MRS. ANNE HUTCHINSON 

It is little wonder that his coming filled the colony 
with exceeding joy. It was something that they had 
earnestly desired and prayed for. To honor him, and 
perhaps to attract him to these shores, they had given 
the name of Boston to their chief town, as that was the 
name of the town in the mother countiy where he had 
exercised his great gifts for the glor}' of God, and in the 
service of Puritanism. To Boston, therefore, he came, 
and was the chief magnet to draw Mrs. Hutchinson 
thither also. For she had enjoyed his ministrations in 
her EngUsh home, and had been nurtured by them in 
the faith ; she had listened to his sermons and had been 
edified by them ; she had weighed his doctrine, and had 
found it to be exceeding sound and of great spiritual 
efficacy; she had held communion with him on high 
religious themes, and her heart was drawn to him as a 
prophet of surpassing grace and truth. She came to 
the new world, therefore, that she might continue to 
enjoy his ministry, which promised more of stimulus 
and edification to her spiritual life than any other that 
she knew. Beyond the fact that she rejoiced in the 
preaching of Mr. Cotton and also of her brother-in-law, 
Mr. John Wheelwright, we know notliing about the life 
of Mrs. Hutchinson in her English home, except that she 
was the daughter of a non-conformist minister, a Rev. 
Mr. ^larbuiy. She was a woman in middle life when she 
arrived in Boston, with traits of character, and habits 
of thought, and religious opinions fully formed. 

Of course she and her husband made speedy applica- 
tion for admission to membership in the Boston church, 
and the records of the church show that Mr. Hutchinson 
was received on the 26th of October. Mrs. Hutchinson's 
admission was delaj^ed for a week, to the 2nd of Novem- 
ber, in order to give the authorities opportunity to enquire 



MRS. AXXE HUTCHINSON 11 

more particularly concerning her views. For during the 
passage she had talked freel}^ and with characteristic 
assurance, upon rehgious themes, and had produced 
something of a stir among the passengers. In particular 
the Rev. Zechariah Symmes, who was subsequently 
pastor of the Charlestown church, had engaged in dis- 
cussion wdth her and had probably been worsted by her 
quick wdt and nimble tongue ; for he testified in her trial 
that what he took notice of in his talk with her. on the 
ship ''w^as the corruptness and narrowness of her opin- 
ions." That sounds a good deal Uke the remark of a 
man vanquished in argument and unwilling to admit 
it. At all events, immediately on his arrival in Boston 
he gave notice to the Governor and the Deputy of ]\Irs. 
Hutchinson's eccentricities of belief, of her doctrinal 
speculations, and of her pretence to immediate revela- 
tions. This it was which caused the ministers and elders 
to delay her admission to the church, after her husband 
had been already received, and this it was which gave 
rise to the accusation later that she secured admission 
to the church by concealing or dissembling her opinions. 
Once admitted to the church, how^ever, and established 
in her own home, she quickly commended herself to the 
esteem and affection of the community, and particularh^ 
of the women of the community. She was a w^oman, 
not only of pronounced religious convictions, but of 
quick human sympathies; and she was as capable and 
efficient in her neighborly ministrations as she was warm- 
hearted. She was undoubtedly masterful in her bearing, 
but it was that restful master}- of bearing which is wel- 
come in times of trouble and suffering. In the chamber 
of birth and of death alike she was present as a helpful 
and comforting minister to the ph3^sical weakness and 
the spiritual wants of her sisters. She was their nurse. 



12 MRS. ANNE HUTCHINSON 

their confidante, and their sympathetic friend. Im- 
pressed as they must have been by her unusual mental 
gifts and her consecration, they were no less drawn to 
her by her unselfish and tender ministries, and by her 
eagerness and her abilit}^ to help them in those trying 
moments when help is most sorely needed. It is cer- 
tainly to be regretted that there is no extant portrait of 
Mrs. Hutchinson, and none of the persons who have 
written so freely and frankty of her virtues and her 
errors, have left any hint of her personal appearance. 
It is perhaps reasonable to infer, therefore, that the 
influence she acquired was not due to her personal charms, 
but solely to her intellectual gifts, her fervent religious 
character, and her kindly human feelings, joined with an 
unusual capacity for practical helpfulness. Rev. Thomas 
Welde, one of the authors of the Bay Psalm Book, the 
minister of Roxbur^^ and always an unfriendty critic 
of Mrs. Hutchinson, describes her as ''a woman of a 
haughty and fierce carriage, of a nimble wit and active 
spirit, and a very voluble tongue, more bold than a man, 
though in understanding and judgment inferior to many 
women", but he feels compelled to say of her, in another 
place, that she was "a woman very helpful in the time 
of childbirth, and other occasions of bodily disease, 
and well furnished with means for those purposes." 

Upon her arrival in Boston, Mrs. Hutchinson found 
that, in addition to the frequent public religious exercises 
at which both men and women were present, there were 
certain stated meetings of the brethren for religious dis- 
course from which women were excluded. At these 
meetings of the men it was the custom to review and 
discuss the sermons of the preceding Sunday. Those 
sermons, no doubt, furnished sufficient material, and, to 
the Puritan mind, sufficient stimulus for such discussion. 



MRS. AXNE HUTCHrNSON" 13 

/The sen-ice, of which the sermon was the central and 
most esteemed feature, was expected to last from three 
to five hours. Upon the pulpit stood an hour-glass, and 
as the sendee went on it was the duty of the sexton to 
go up hour by hour and turn the glass over. Governor 
Winthrop speaks incidentally of a sermon preached at 
Cambridge by the saintly Thomas Hooker when he was 
not in his usual health. He proceeded, says Winthrop, 
in his discourse for fifteen minutes, then stopped and 
rested half an hour, then resumed and preached for two 
hours. It was customary- for nearly every one to carry 
his note-book to church, and to write down as much as 
he could of the cUscourse. ''The sermon," savs Mr. 
Tyler, "was without a competitor in the eye or mind of 
the community. It was the central and commanding 
incident in their hves; the one stately spectacle for all 
men and all women year after year ; the grandest matter 
of anticipation or of memor}' ; the theme for hot disputes 
on which all New England would take sides, and which 
would seem sometimes to shake the world to its centre." 
The meetings of the men, therefore, for criticism an3 
comment and dispute upon the sermons to which they 
had last listened were occasions of the greatest interest 
and importance, and it must have seemed a special hard- 
ship to the women that they were excluded from the 
benefits and the excitements of them. Mrs. Hutchinson 
was not one to rest quiet under such a discrimination, 
and, -with characteristic promptness she instituted a 
similar meeting for her own sex. These meetings at 
once became popular and drew together a large number 
of women, to whom, under the ostensible purpose of 
repeating and discussing the last deUvered sermon, she 
expounded her cherished religious \'iews, and compared 
the teachings of the various ministers of the colony. 



14 MRS. ANNE HUTCHINSON 

As she had come to Boston mainly to enjoy the ministra- 
tions of Mr. Cotton, it was natural that her preference 
for him, and her strong approval of his preaching, should 
be emphasized by her. As a member of the Boston 
church she could not listen to his discourses as teacher 
without listening also to those of the pastor, Mr. Wilson. 
But of Mr. Wilson's sermons she did not approve; and 
in her private conversation with friends, as well as in the 
more formal meetings of the women, she did not hesi- 
tate to disparage and condenm his doctrine. Colleagues 
as he and Mr. Cotton were in the ministry of the Boston 
Church, and both of them held in affectionate esteem 
and veneration by their parishioners, the keen judgment 
of Mrs. Hutchinson detected a radical difference of 
religious teaching in their discourses, a difference which 
she probably exaggerated, and which she made the basis 
of a comparison in the highest degree unfavorable to 
Mr. Wilson, and at the same time destructive of the peace 
"of the church. //Bhe affirmed that Mr. Wilson preached 
a covenant of 'works; by which she meant that he laid 
great stress upon the outward marks of a religious life, 
such as dress, deportment, observance of times and 
seasons, adherence to forms and methods, — all those 
external signs of sanctity and of separation from the 
world upon which the Puritan mind was accustomed 
to insist, and which were wont to be regarded as an 
essential and satisfactory evidence of inward righteous- 
ness, and of justification before God. , 

To such teaching as this Mrs. Hutchinson was openly 
and vehemently opposed. She held it to be the substi- 
tution of the bondage of the Law for the freedom of the 
Gospel. She called it 'legalism," and regarded it as 
hostile to both the spirit and the teaching of Christianity. 
She ceased not earnestly to dissuade all who came within 



MRS. ANNE HUTCHINSON 15 

the sphere of her influence against trusting to an outside 
righteousness, to the tokens of piety set forth in deeds 
and virtues. This was what she called a ''covenant of 
works," and in opposition to it she urged an entire reliance 
upon the ''covenant of grace," the free and personal 
wdtness of the Spirit, communicated from Christ to the 
heart of the believer. She maintained that the conscious- 
ness of union with the Holy Spirit, and a prevailing pur- 
pose of righteousness, would secure to the spirit of the 
beUever a serenity not to be attained by the fonnalisms 
of piety. And it was such a "covenant of grace," with 
its freedom from austere restraints, its trust in an inward 
assurance, and its reliance upon divine grace commxuni- 
cated immediately to the heart, — it was such a covenant 
of grace, so she maintained, that Mr. Cotton preached. 
Accordingly she lost no opportunity to commend his 
sermons, and to disparage those of Mr. Wilson ; and prob- 
ably both the commendation and the disparagement 
were thorough-going and emphatic, and were made more 
intense by an infusion of personal partisanship to which 
human nature is ever liable, and perhaps feminine human 
nature particularly so. Such speculations or convictions 
might be expressed, and even with unction, in these days, 
without disturbing the relations between friends, or 
imperilUng the peace of churches, — and certainly with- 
out threatening disaster to society andf government. But 
our conditions are not those of the Puritan colony. "The 
distinction between the two covenants was vital in the 
view of ^Irs. Hutchinson, and the moment the distinction 
is stated we instinctively perceive that it could not fail 
to bring into discredit the formal and methodical observ- 
ances of the scrupulous forefathers of New England, 
/the outward manifestations of piety were then much- 
regarded and stringently enforced ; perhaps their impor- 



16 MRS. AXXE HUTCHINSON 

tance was exaggerated ; they were certainly open to the 
charge of too much resembUng display ; for not only was 
a grave and reverent bearing expected, but austerity 
in looks, and sanctimoniousness in dress and phrase, 
were considered all essential.''/ 

"/Obnoxious as Mrs. Hutchinson's doctrines came to 
be, and necessarily obnoxious, she had been in New 
England two years before they excited special attention. 
It was not till October 1636, when for two years she had 
been doing her deeds of kindness, and holding her weekty 
meetings, and exercising her gifts of exposition and 
exhortation, and sowing seeds of dissension, — that 
Winthrop mentions Mrs. Hutchinson in these terms: 

''One Mrs. Hutchinson, a member of the church of 
Boston, a woman of a ready wit and bold spirit, brought 
over with her two dangerous errors : 1 . That the person 
of the Holy Ghost dwells in a justified person : ^2. That 
no sanctification (by which he means no outward holiness 
of life), can help to e\ddence to us our justification." 
''From these two," he continues, "grew many branches, 
as (1) our union with the Hoty Ghost, so as a christian 
remains dead to every spiritual action, and hath no 
gifts nor graces other than such as are in h3^pocrites, nor 
any other sanctification but the Holy Ghost himself." 
Then he adds that "there joined with her in these opinions 
a })rother of hers, one Mr. ^Vheelwright, a silenced min- 
ister, sometimes in England." This Mr. Wheelwright 
had but recently come over to Boston when Winthrop 
wrote these words, and his coming served to precipitate 
the strife which could not long be delayed. He became 
a public expounder of the views which ^Irs. Hutchinson 
held, and was, equally with Mr. Cotton, the subject of 
her commendation, and of invidious comparison with the 
other ministers of the colony. An earher arrival than 



MRS. AX\E HUTCHINSON 17 

Mr. Wheelwright's, in Boston, was that of Mr. Henry 
Vane, the son of Sir Henrj- Vane, the King's comptroller. 
He was heartily, and even enthusiastically welcomed b}' 
the colonists, who were filled with pride and hope in hav- 
ing among them the son and heir of a privy -councillor. 
Accordingly, setting aside from the chief magistracy 
the wise and moderate Winthrop, Henry Vane was 
elected, in 1636, Governor, ''after so brief a sojourn as 
made it impossible that he should know the spirit and 
the position of those over whom, in all his immaturity of 
judgment, he was placed, by a haste and zeal which were 
not wise to say the least." Not only was he thus elected 
to the highest office, but the honor was accompanied by 
unusual demonstrations of popular interest, and by the 
discharge of volleys from all the ships in the ba3^ The 
difficulties that ensued were aggravated by this hasty 
measure ; for Vane joined Mrs. Hutchinson, and his fall 
was, in a manner, identified with hers. 

Such was the state of things, when public and anxious 
attention was drawn to Mrs. Hutchinson. The discover}^, 
says Dr. EUis, was like the discover^^ of a conflagration 
which was kindled at night, and behind a wall. Peace 
had reigned long enough to allow the leaven to work its 
way; and when the eyes of magistrates and ministers 
were opened, they saw at once the whole evil, which was 
then past their power to redress, though they set about it 
with all their zeal. All sorts of persons were found to 
have been attracted b}" her spells, and involved in her 
tenets. Cotton and Wheelwright among the ministers; 
Vane, the Governor, with such influential men as Dummer 
and Coddington among the magistrates; man}^ of the 
deputies of the towns who had frequented Boston, with 
large numbers of the militar}^ and the yeomamy, were 
her abettors or disciples. "The watchwords of the new 



18 MRS. AXXE HUTCHINSON 

party were heard at town-meetings, at trainings, in public 
worship, in family prayers, in the blessing before meat, 
and in the grace after meat. Children asked each 
other whether their parents stood for the covenant of 
grace or for the covenant of works." 
/ ''It came about," says Rev. Thos. Welde in his Short 
Story of the Rise, Reign and Ruin of the ^\ntinomians, 
— ''that those errors were so soon conveyed before we 
were aware, not only into the church of Boston, where 
most of these seducers lived, but also into almost all the 
parts of the country round about. These opinions 
being thus spread, and grown to their full ripeness and 
latitude, through the nimbleness and activity of their 
fomenters, began now to lift up their heads full high, 
to stare us in the face, and to confront all that opposed 
them." "Now," he exclaims, "oh their boldness, pride, 
insolency, alienation from their old and dearest friends, 
the disturbances, divisions, contentions they raised 
among us, both in church and state, and in families, 
setting division betwixt husband and wife! Oh, the 
sore censure against all sorts that opposed them, and the 
contempt they cast upon our godly magistrates, churches, 
ministers, and all that were set over them, when they 
stood in their way ! 

"Now the faithful ministers of Christ must have dung 
cast on their faces, and be no better than legal preachers, 
Baal's priests, popish factors, scribes, Pharisees, and 
opposers of Christ himself!" 

And, indeed, there was much reason for Mr. Welde's 
book of lamentations. "The ministers in the colon}^ were 
classified, and what had fonnerly been approved as 
most signal marks of piety were now looked upon as the 
mark of Cain. There was a wandering of church mem- 
bers from their own places of worship on the Sabbath, 



MRS. AWE HUTCHINSON 19 

either because their own preacher did not edify, or because 
another preacher did not. Some of the more zealous 
turned their backs and left the meetings when preachers 
whom the}^ did not wish to hear stood up in the desk. 
]\lrs. Hutchinson herself set an example for this offensive 
proceeding by leaving the meeting-house w^hen the 
pastor Wilson was to preach." 

''Now", wails Mr. Welde, ''you might have seen many 
of the opinionists rising up, and contemptuously turning 
their backs upon the faithful pastors of that church, 
and going forth from the assembly when he began to 
pray or preach. Now you might have read epistles of 
defiance and challenge, written to some ministers after 
their sermons, to cross and contradict truths by them 
delivered, and to maintain their own way. It was a 
wonder of mercy that they had not set our Commonwealth 
and churches on a fire, and consumed us all therein." — « 
, Such were the elements of discord in Boston, elements 
that could hardly fail to breed strife in any community 
at any time. The opinions and practices of Mrs. Hutchin- 
son and her partisans were offensive in themselves, and 
equally offensive in the manner of their exhibition. 
Before an}^ public notice was taken of her, and long before 
any harsh measures were adopted against her party, 
the disturbing and mortifying and estranging effects to 
which I have referred had been brought about. If there 
had been no public proceedings against Mrs. Hutchinson 
and her friends the colon}^ would still have suffered a 
dangerous conflict and division. These deplorable results 
cannot, therefore, be justly charged upon the interference 
or the severity of the public authorities. It must be 
remembered, too, that from the beginning of the contro- 
versy its political bearings and its seditious tendencies 
were foreseen. Church and state were in a pecuUar 



20 MRS. ANNE HUTCHINSON 

sense one in the Massachusetts colony, and the authori- 
ties were in constant dread lest they should lose their 
charter, the surrender of which was repeatedly and 
imperiously demanded of them. Nothing so much 
endangered their possession of the charter as reports of 
disorderly proceedings in the colony, and nothing had 
provoked so much disorder as the course of Mrs. Hutchin- 
son and her followers. To quell the disorder, therefore, 
and to suppress the mischievous party was, in their 
view, as much a political as a religious duty. Beside 
they had reason to fear that the doctrine euphemistically 
preached as the covenant of grace might turn out with 
them as it had turned out in the old world, where the 
substitution of inward assurance for conformity to the 
law, under the name of antinomianism, had been fol- 
lowed by moral lapses and scandals of a most distressing 
character. XThey had reason, I say, to fear this result 
of the doctrine in Massachusetts, though it is but just 
to say that there was only one instance of such a perver- 
sion of the doctrine in the colony, — only one instance, 
at least, that is a matter of historical record. That was 
the case of the famous Captain Underhill, a doughty 
Indian fighter, who, when he was put on trial for his 
immoralities, affirmed that ^'he had lain under a spirit 
of bondage and a legal way five years, and could get no 
assurance (of his being justified) till at length, as he was 
taking a pipe of tobacco, the Spirit sent home an absolute 
promise of free grace with such assurance and joy, as he 
never since doubted of his good estate, neither should he, 
though he should fall into sin," — a condition that was 
fulfilled in his subsequent experience. 

The continued political existence, and the moral 
health, of the colony, therefore, both demanded that the 
combined power of the magistrates and the ministers 



MRS. ANNE HirrnixsoN 21 

should be exerted to the utmost to put an end to the 
most perilous condition of affairs that Massachusetts 
has ever known. This necessity was additionally empha- 
sized, I should think, by an incident in the military admin- 
istration of the colony. The Pequot Indians had become 
very aggressive and dangerous, and it was thought 
necessar\^ to send a considerable force against them. But 
the levy of Boston troops refused to be mustered into the 
service because the chaplain, who had been chosen by 
lot to accompany the forces, was Mr. Wilson, and he was 
committed, in his preaching, to a covenant of works. 
If military operations were liable to be blocked by theo- 
logical fastidiousness on the part of the soldiery, while 
a cruel and savage foe was lying in wait to scalp impar- 
tially the adherents of both covenants, there was but a 
gloomy prospect for the future of the colon}^ 
/Every consideration, therefore, of domestic peace, 
of public morality, and of secure political existence, 
seemed to demand immediate and vigorous action against 
the Hutchinson party. Governor Winthrop continued 
to stand firm against the suspicious and disturbing doc- 
trines, and he was himself a tower of strength. He is 
justly characterized by Dr. Geo. E. Ellis as the wisest, 
most faithful counsellor, fosterer and ever loyal friend 
of the colony, the sincerest, purest spirit of the Puritan ' 
Theocracy. /\Vith him were associated, in determined 
opposition to Mrs. Hutchinson and her followers, Deputy- 
Governor Dudley, the Rev. John Wilson of the Boston - 
church, and all the ministers of the neighboring towns, 
including Mr. Shepard of Cambridge, Mr. Welde of Rox- 
bury, Mr. Symmes of Charlestpwn, ^Ir. Hugh Peter of 
Salem, and Mr. Philips of Watertown; of all these 
ministers Mrs. Hutchinson had said repeatedly that 
they were not ' 'sealed," and were not "able ministers 



22 MRS. AXNE HUTCHINSON 

of the New Testament," — an expression of opinion 
which was not likely to conciliate them to her doctrines. 
Mr. Philips of Watertown regarded it as peculiarly un- 
reasonable in her to include him in this general condemna- 
tion, because she had never heard him preach at all. 
Besides these ministers the majority of the deputies to 
the General Court from the towns outside of Boston were 
unfriendly to the Hutchinson party. That party, on 
the other hand, consisted of Mrs. Hutchinson, its moving 
spirit, Mr. Cotton and nearly all the membership of the 
Boston church. Rev. Mr. "Wlieelwright of the Mount 
Wollaston church and some of his people, and the entire 
body of Boston deputies and elders. Governor Vane 
was also a strong adherent of the party, but he returned to 
England while the conflict was in its earlier stages. 

I must not attempt to detail the successive steps 
that led up to the trial of Mrs. Hutchinson. There were 
conferences of the ministers, pubHc fast-days, and an 
imposing synod at Cambridge. Mr. WTieelwright was 
censured, and afterguards banished, for an alleged sedi- 
tious sermon on a fast-day. Many members of the 
Boston church who signed a remonstrance against the 
action touching Mr. Wheelwright, were deprived of their 
arms and ammunition — an inconvenient and humili- 
ating punishment — and a number of the more incorrig- 
ible remonstrants were banished from the colony. Mr. 
Cotton was examined as to his tenets and his teaching, 
and was able to give such an explanation of his position 
as to put him outside the Hutchinson party, and to retain 
his unquestioned standing in the community and the 
church. And at last came the trial of Mrs. Hutchinson 
herself before the Great Court of Massachusetts. She 
could not be left to the judgment of the Boston church 
of which she was a member, because the church itself 



MRS. AWE HUTCHINSON 23 

had gone astray, and was in open sympathy with this 
accused woman. Indeed the church itself was to be 
censured through the penalties inflicted upon her and 
others of its members; and the combined authority of 
the towns around Boston, with their ministers, was 
brought to bear against the heretical and seditious church 
of the metropolis. 

Xlt was in November, 1637, that the trial took place, 
the General Court then sitting at Cambridge. It was an 
impressive and pitiful spectacle. With all New England 
looking on, the combined powers of the government 
and the church were directed with hostile intent and 
manner against one poor woman of unimpeachable per- 
sonal character. The Governor, the Deputy-Governor, 
the magistrates and the deputies were present. All the 
ministers of the colon}^ were there, smarting under the 
reproaches which Mrs. Hutchinson had spoken against 
them, and determined to insure her humihation. Besides 
these the building was thronged with friendly and 
unfriendly spectators. And when Anne Hutchinson 
stood up to meet the charges that were brought against 
her, the spectators saw a woman enfeebled in body and 
depressed in mind, but invincible in spirit as she faced 
the accusers, and stood on her defence before the as- 
sembled wisdom, and authority, and sanctity of ^lassa- 
chusetts colony. There were some features of special 
hardship too, which it is not pleasant to remember. No 
counsel was allowed her, nor the presence of any support- 
ing friend; and she was compelled to stand until she 
nearly fell from exhaustion. 

Governor Winthrop, by virtue of his office, conducted 
the prosecution, though the examination passed some- 
what out of his hands as the trial progressed. A (fairly) 
full report of the trial, by an unknown hand, may be 



24 MRS. ANNE HUTCHINSON 

read in an appendix to the History of Massachusetts 
by Thos. Hutchinson, a great-grandson of Anne, who in 
his impartial and judicious account of the controversy 
is far from espousing with ardor the cause of his famous 
ancestress. It appears from that report that various 
specific charges were brought against her, such as holding 
unlawful meetings at her house, supporting those who 
were under censure of the court (meaning Mr. AVheel- 
wright and the Boston remonstrants), defaming the 
ministers of the colony, and promulgating opinions 
disturbing to the peace of the commonwealth. Against 
these charges Mrs. Hutchinson defended herself with a 
clearness and skill and self-rehance that compel our ad- 
miration. She was neither abashed nor outwitted, though 
she was surrounded by the venerated symbols of author- 
ity, and was hard pressed by the keenest intellects and 
the most practiced disputants of the colony, and was 
herself weary and worn by the various phases of the 
conflict through which she had already passed. 

Deputy-Governor Dudley, the father of the gentle 
poetess, Anne Bradstreet, impatient at the slow progress 
of the prosecution by the discussion of specific charges, 
made this general statement of the case against her: 
''About three years ago we were all in peace. Mrs. 
Hutchinson, from that time she came, hath made a dis- 
turbance, and some that came over with her in the 
ship, did inform me what she was as soon as she was 
landed. I being then in place dealt with the pastor 
and teacher of Boston, and desired them to inquire of 
her, and then I was satisfied that she held nothing differ- 
ent from us ; but within half a year after she had vented 
divers of her strange opinions, and had made parties in 
the country, and at length it comes that Mr. Cotton and 
Mr. Vane were of her judgment; but Mr. Cotton hath 



MRS. AWE HUTCHINSON 2o 

cleared himself that he was not of that mind; but now 
it appears by this woman's meeting that Mrs. Hutchinson 
hath so forestalled the minds of many by their resort 
to her meeting that now she hath a potent party in the 
country. Now, if all these things have endangered us 
as from that foundation, and if she in particular hath 
disparaged all oiu* ministers in the land that they have 
preached a covenant of works, and only Mr. Cotton a 
covenant of grace, why this is not to be suffered, and 
therefore being driven to the foundation, and it being 
found that Mrs. Hutchinson is she that hath depraved all 
the ministers and hath been the cause of what has fallen 
out, why we must take away the foundation and the 
building will fall." 

This view of the case — as to the removal of the 
foundation — prevailed, and particularly after Mrs. 
Hutchinson had furnished the m.ost serious and conclu- 
sive evidence herself by claiming ''special revelations" 
as the justification of all that she had done. Accordingly 
the sentence of the court, as it stands upon the records 
of Massachusetts, was as follows: 

''Mrs. Hutchinson, the wife of Mr. Wm. Hutchinson, 
being convicted for traducing the ministers and their 
ministr}^ in the country, she declared voluntarily her 
revelations for the ground, and that she shoidd be deliv- 
ered, and the court ruined with their posterity, and 
thereupon was banished and in the meanwhile was 
committed to Mr. Joseph Welde (of Roxbury) until the 
court shall dispose of her." 

The Mr. Joseph Welde to whose care she was com- 
mitted, in order that her banishment might not be in 
the winter, was a brother of the minister who was one 
of her bitterest enemies. She was to be treated with 
kindness at his house, at the expense of her husband; 



26 MRS. AXNE HUTCHINSON 

but only her particular friends and the elders were to be 
admitted to her, ''lest the eloquence of persecution 
should double the power and the mischief of her gifts," 
In the following March, after a winter's imprison- 
ment, made doubly irksome by the repeated examina- 
tions and conferences and exhortations of the elders in 
the effort to subdue her to their own way of thinking, 
she was brought before the Boston church to answer 
to the charge of heresy in doctrine. It is true that she 
was not convicted, but neither was she converted, and 
therefore the church voted that she should be solemnly 
admonished. The dut}^ of pronouncing the admonition 
was laid upon Mr. Cotton. It is recorded that ''he laid 
her sin to her conscience with much zeal and solemnity; 
he admonished her also of the height of her spirit; then 
he spoke to the sisters of the church, and advised them 
to take heed of her opinions, and to withhold all counte- 
nance and respect from her, lest they should harden her 
in her sin." And these words she was compelled to hear 
from the minister whom she had followed in love and 
reverence to New England, and who had been to her a 
special prophet of grace and tnith. But her trials were 
not yet over. A week later she was again brought 
before the church, and because she persistently denied 
having expressed or held an offensive opinion which was 
imputed to her, she was condemned for falsehood, and 
was excommunicated from the church. The venerable 
records of the First Church in Boston contain this entry : 
"The 22nd of March, 1638, Anne, the wife of our brother, 
William Hutchinson, having on the 15th of this month 
been openly, in the public congregation, admonished of 
sundry errors held by her, was on the same 22nd day cast 
out of the church, for impenitently persisting in a mani- 
fest lie then expressed by her in open congregation." 



MRS. ANNE HUTCHINSON 27 

Thus excommunicated from the church, and ban- 
ished from the colony, she went with her husband to 
Rhode Island, whither we cannot follow her, further 
than to say that, on the death of her hus])and four years 
later, she removed with her yoimger children to the 
Dutch settlement in New York, and became one of a 
little colony of sixteen persons. The Indians were then 
in open hostility with the Dutch, in pillage, burning, and 
massacre. In one of their raids, in 1643, the whole of 
this little colony of sixteen suffered the tragic fate of a 
savage massacre. The Indian custom of preserving the 
names of those they killed has made us know that Wam- 
pago himself, the owner of the land upon which the 
colony was settled, was the murderer of the woman 
whose life was so strange a mixture of consecration and 
conflict, of kindliness and contention, of happiness and 
suffering. 

Necessary as her persecution and banishment may 
liave been to the safety of Massachusetts colony, she yet 
cherished and taught an ideal of Christianity more perma- 
nent than that of the stern Puritans who cast her out 
from their presence, and who verily believed that by 
that act they were doing God service. 



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